When forming a fully enclosed carrier such as one used to package long neck bottles, the upper portions of the end panels are often tapered so as to better follow the contour of adjacent bottles. To accomplish this the bottom panel is made longer than the top panel and the side panels are made longer at the bottom than at the top. The lower portion of the side panels is of constant length and the upper portion is tapered. Although such a carrier conforms to the shape of the bottles better than a nontapered carrier, there are still gaps between the bottles and the corners of the carrier. Further, there is often a relatively large space between the upper portion of the side panels and the bottle necks.
While it would be desirable to more tightly fit long neck bottles in an enclosed carrier, the nature of sleeve-type carriers, which are conventionally used to package the bottles, has prevented it. Sleeve-type carriers are formed from a blank which is delivered to a packaging machine in the form of a collapsed sleeve. After the sleeve is erected, bottles are loaded through one or both open ends of the sleeve and the ends of the carrier are closed. The end panels of the carrier are formed by folding in dust or glue flaps from the side panels to which they are connected, and then gluing upper and lower end panel flaps to them. This arrangement results in the undesirable corner gaps.
The glue flaps hinged to the end edges of the side panels are basically comprised of a single flap containing a wide notch extending in from the outer edge of the flap to a point near the juncture of the tapered upper edge of the side panel and the straight lower edge portion. This creates a narrow connecting strip between the upper and lower segments of the glue flap. The combination of the notch and a score line in the connecting strip allows the two segments of the glue flaps to shift as necessary when folded into place in order to accommodate the segments to the tapered shape of the end panels. Because folding of the upper segment of the glue flaps is resisted by the angled relationship of its fold line to the fold line of the lower segment, folding of the glue flaps can be difficult.
It would be desirable to be able to form a tapered carrier which is capable of more closely following the contours of long neck bottles or other tapered articles in order to more tightly hold the articles within the package. The goal is to not only provide end panels which more closely conform to the shape of the bottles, but to actually contact the bottles in the corner areas. In addition, it would be desirable for the side panels of the carrier to more closely follow the contour of adjacent bottles. It is therefore an object of the invention to provide a sleeve-type carrier which is capable of forming a tighter package of long neck bottles or other tapered articles.